Shearing Day!

We started shearing day off with much humming and suspicion! They knew we were up to something. First we lured them down with grain, then we sealed their access to the hill...and then it was a hum fest!

  Royal was quickly dealt with to avoid excess spitting and injury. He is very protective of his herd and can get very dangerous. He is done first and quickly turned out...

 Everyone was brushed to get as much vegetable matter out as possible. It had also rained the evening before so it also dried them a bit.

 The shearers arrived and began with the sheep. Their fleeces were beautiful, especially our whether "Fred". I can't wait to get my hands on our lamb "Daisy's" fleece!

 Then it was time for the Alpacas. Here Jeremiah and Rick (on the right) with Tim on the left helping to prepare "Norman"...

 We had a lot of helpers who we could not get it done without, our son Timmy (on the rope), my mom and BillieJo on bagging and Sydnie on the gate...

 and there is me looking like a hot mess on trimming hooves...

 many of them needed to get their teeth done, the smell really smells worse than the dentist and if you look really close you can see smoke!

...afterwards they are naked, ready for the warm weather ahead and with a little snack they have forgotten the whole thing, except the humans who are still recovering!

So many eggs!

 Okay so I didn't collect for a couple of days! This time of year you can skip a day or two! When I collected I had over 60 eggs!

This basket was filled to the brim! With 26 hens laying that is a lot of eggs! So remember we have eggs for sale! Mostly extra large brown eggs with an occasional jumbo egg!

and her name is...

After long consideration, 3 separate lists suggestions, going back and forth with the family, we have chosen..............."Honey"! The name was just so perfect the first time I saw it for two reasons, it was our late dog "Amy"s nickname and I am a beekeeper! Her color will change to be like cream honey as well. We are in love with this little soul! She spent part of her day in the greenhouse eating the chickens hay and here she is joining us on a break from farm chores. I am so happy we decided to have her join our farm family!

A new member of the Coon Hollow Farm family!

 Here she is! Our new English Angora Rabbit. We are not quite ready to name her. We are hoping she will tell us what her name is...

 Here is her mom, just look at those lovely long ears, she is so beautiful!

 Our ride home was a long one and she did very well. When I got her home, settled her in, she took a long nap.

 We took her outside onto the deck and let her roam around on the picnic table for a bit. She was quite inquisitive, taking in what was all around her. Autumn is fascinated with her and we thought it would be Zoe!

 She stopped for a moment and struck a pose for me. She just knows she is a beauty! I have to say I am in love!

Just look at those ears! The tufts are already starting. That is my favorite thing about English Angoras, those adorable ears.

Of course I had to check out her fiber! She is the softest thing I have ever touched. I can't stop petting her and touching her! I am so happy that she has come to live with us. It has not been a decision I came to lightly. I have researched them and have been searching for rescues, but to no avail. I found a woman and her daughter who bred for the first time and loved their rabbits so much. They were informing and passionate about their rabbits. So the journey begins, exploring this beautiful little soul and the possibilities that her fiber can provide as she enriches our lives!

Changing of the guard...

 Sadly this morning when I opened the chicken coop, our old rooster "Big Red" had passed away during the night. He had a long tough road and was really coming along well. I was about to post new pics of his progress. I inspected the wound after his passing and it had healed so nicely. He was a tough bird and we are somewhat surprised by his passing...

so it's time for his son, "Red Jr" or as we have been calling him, "Studly". He has stepped up into the role of a rooster, watching over his flock. Always concerned of the slightest distress in one of his hens, and today stepped in to take over his fathers flock as well. In both pictures here he is on alert, watching his girls, all 26 of them! RIP "Big Red" I will never forget you and will always respect you!

Hand Carding a fiber of a different color...

... or should I say of a different fiber! Today I was going through my fiber stash and came across some Angora rabbit as well as some Chinchilla. Here I am using hand carders to pull apart the clumps.

 This is the Chinchilla that I got from my friend and the tool to the left is called a "mini-flicker. It helps to pull the clumps apart. I also use it to clean my drum carder. It is a priceless tool!

 Some clumpy white Angora, it is so soft! I think I am going to combine it with some dyed Alpaca to make an incredibly soft yarn as soon as I get it in spinning shape!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Here is a different shade of Angora that I bought a long time ago and have had it stashed. It has shades of gray with white swirled into it. So off to do something different. Hoping for some creative inspiration to do it justice!

Opening the Hives...

 The weekend here was beautiful and the bees were flying in and out, perfect time for an inspection. I tried to get some shots of them bringing in pollen but was quickly being watched by the guard bees sooooo, I got out of there and decided to suit up....

 During the inspection it was clear that hive "A" was fine, but soon realized that there was no activity in"B" which was active just a few weeks ago. I soon learned that we had lost them. It seems they died from too much moisture in the hive. There were over 2000 bees dead, very sad. We knew we had lost "C" early in the winter.

 If you see the bigger bee with the yellow dot on her back, that is the queen! She is checking for cells that are empty and worthy of laying her eggs. In the upper cells you can see where she has already laid and they will cap it in a few days. The workers were busy cleaning and bringing in pollen. It is officially spring, the bees are back to work...

 In this picture, you can see the queen, workers and pollen in the cells. Just after I took this picture she dropped her abdomen in the cell and laid an egg! So our plan for the next coming weeks is to watch this hive. When we get into the next few weeks we will make a split from this hive to re-stock hive "B" and make a split from the Observation Hive at the Nature Center and re-hive both these hives. The is how hive "A" was produced last year which happened to be the only hive other than the Observation Hive to come through this brutal winter that we had.

The feeder was added to the hive with sugar, water and Honey-B-Healthy to boosts their immune systems as well as getting them fed while they are waking up and getting to the business of living!

Boys will be Boys!

 Look at that face! So cute but so mischievous! Now take a look at that wool coat he has on...ruined! It's barely holding on with a string!

 These coats were so cute and perfect when I put them on. They play so hard, running back and forth, humping each other and even playing with Autumn.

 I guess I can wash them and felt something really cool out of them.

The other lamb has ripped his from the base and is barely holding on. I am yet to get one into the next season. Well the weather is getting warmer and it's time to take them off before they fall off!

Planting the Greenhouse and Coldframe

 The winter here in Connecticut has held on with a vengeance! It seems like it is never going to be Spring around here. Even today it is cold and over cast. I was looking at the calender and realized I need to get planting! So I did...

 I have been readying the Cold Frame with Alpaca manure and compost. It was left to warm and ready the plants. Many types of lettuce are planted, mesculin, black seeded simpson and iceberg (for Tim!).

 This year I am trying something new in the greenhouse. I got these seed starting pellets from Home Depot yesterday...

 Placed them on an old cafeteria tray and put a heating pad underneath. I have been in deep talk with my garden guru friend Pat and the secret is keeping them warm on these cold Spring nights.

 So I went to planting some new seeds and some that I had over wintered as well. Tomato, peppers, and many types of herbs. Even 5 different basils as well.

The Bay plants that were over wintered in the house went back out to the Greenhouse, the dead leaves were picked and they were re-potted with some nice fresh soil.

More Corespun softness...

 No it's not a black and white picture, it's black, white and gray roving layed over on a core! It is made of alpaca, "babydoll" sheep wool and llama. It just bounces with the "Babydoll" in it, so soft and fun!

Once again I laid over a triple layer of white pearl metallic thread. It is such a fun yarn, I may have to make something with it! I am just loving this new wheel! You can do so much with it, spin large quantities and not have to stop to change the spool. It would be problematic if you were doing a large core spun and the metallic thread, not sure how I would join them. I am looking around the wool room trying to get inspiration for my next project!

The Art of over dyeing...

 When you dye fiber or anything for that matter it depends on the medium of which you are dyeing to get the acquired results. In the picture to the left, there is grey wool roving on the top, which came from my darker sheep and white wool roving on the bottom from my white sheep. The possibilities are endless when you explore and experiment with color, dyes and textures...

Here are the results after dyeing just a basic yellow. The ball of roving on the left is the grey and the ball on the right is the white. The grey blended with the yellow in an almost olive color! Beautiful!

 This ball of roving was supposed to be olive. That is what the bottle of dye said when I bought it. I tried numerous ways to get the dye to take on simple white. I used a mordant and then I tried without. I contacted the company and they gave me tips but I still got the same results. Personally I think their product is a major fail but they won't admit to that! I have never had any problems with their dyes but am switching my supplier and am going to explore some other choices. However, I now have a few balls of this lovely rust colored with an occasional olive here and there, so nothing is a failure, when you have lemons you make lemonade right!? I already have some ideas on what I am going to do with this :)

Healing Naturally...

 I am a bit behind on this post, but an update on "Big Red" and his badly infected leg. He came down to the house on Thursday and I have been nursing his leg ever since. Every anti-biotic has been resistant to his spur wound. I have packed it, cleaned it and still no change. He had stopped eating and drinking.

 It was time to change my direction and consult a book that Tim had bought me for the Holidays. I also started thinking about some healing techniques I had learned while working at a Vet with a Vet from Venezuela. He taught us to heal with sugar and natural methods.

 So with some sugar and some of our own honey I went to work healing my beloved rooster. He may look like a tough guy but me and him have an understanding.

So I gathered some bandage material, gauze, tape and Vaseline to make a barrier so the sugar would stay in place and went to work on healing the big guy.

 This is the wound before I started treating it. Puss filled and completely resistant to anything I was using. I was flushing it, packing it with a couple of kinds of triple anti-biotic creams, I had him on Baytril and nothing was helping. I believe they become resistant because of the antibiotics in their food.

After each application, the leg is carefully bandaged which he is not too fond of. I will take another photo tomorrow of the amazing healing process. When I returned home today he was actually standing up in his crate and eating and drinking. The healing power of what Nature provides for us!